1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and an image processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a technique for exchanging pieces of image data of images captured by a plurality of image pickup apparatuses such as digital cameras or video cameras among these image pickup apparatuses has been developed. In such an exchange of pieces of image data, image data is transferred from one image pickup apparatus to another image pickup apparatus via a wire/wireless communication link with or without a server.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2006-59331 discloses an image data exchange method. In this method, each camera user registers identification information in a server in advance. When the server receives image data and identification information which have been uploaded thereto, it distributes the image data to a user corresponding to the identification information. Accordingly, this method is used in a case in which a plurality of cameras included in an image capturing group register common identification information so as to share image data.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2006-254098 discloses an image data exchange method. In this method, a plurality of camera users set common identification information in advance. The users cause cameras owned by the users to automatically store obtained image data along with the identification information. Upon receiving a request including the identification information from one of cameras sharing the identification information, another camera reads out stored image data associated with the identification information, and transmits the image data to the camera. At that time, the connection between these cameras is established by the users of the cameras.